After setting up a cloud infrastructure, an organization needs tools to monitor that it is running as smoothly as planned.

With this in mind, software provider Zenoss has customized its server and networking monitoring application, Zenoss Enterprise, for VMware's newly released cloud management software, vCloud Director.

The Zenoss software can provide an independent monitoring for organizations using VMware vCloud Director, said Bill Karpovich, Zenoss CEO. It derives state and configuration information from the VMware vCloud API (application programming interface).

VMware's vCloud Director is software that allows organizations to manage and pool large collections of VMware virtual machines, allowing them to create virtual data centers that can be offered as a service either internally or externally.

The Zenoss software can find and map both the vCloud Directory-based virtual layers as well as the underlying components such as servers, storage and network components. The components across all these layers are then visualized and monitored.

The Zenoss software can also watch for certain performance thresholds, such as CPU utilization, and alert administrators when the cloud services cross the thresholds.

Zenoss Enterprise is an enhancement of the open-source Zenoss Core network monitoring application. This specific version of the software can monitor and visualize attributes specific to vCloud Director, such as the ability to monitor the virtual data centers for network and server usage.

In addition to allowing administrators to monitor cloud services, the software can also be configured to allow customers to log in and monitor their resources, to ensure they are hitting the service level agreements, said Dean Cruse, Zenoss vice president of marketing.

Zenoss was not alone in offering new products to support vCloud Director, which VMware unveiled at its VMworld conference being held this week in San Francisco. Access control software provider HyTrust extended its fine-grained authentication software, HyTrust Cloud Control, for vCloud Director as well.